A place for Fun, VEGAN Food, Arts and Crafts, and of course CATS! Lots and Lots of CATS!!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Vegan Pizza Day!

In my opinion EVERY day should be Vegan Pizza Day, but at the very least it should have it’s own holiday, right? Well now it does, and that day was Saturday, January 29th 2011, which marked the first ever Worldwide Vegan Pizza Day! Although I didn’t blog about it until now, I spent part of the day in my kitchen up to my elbows in pizza dough, sauce, veggies, and of course VEGAN CHEESE!

In the spirit of the day, I made two pizzas, one for me and one for my boyfriend, Loukas, with the toppings of our choice.

My Pizza!

Loukas' Pizza!!

First up is my pizza! It’s my very own personal recipe that I call Bruschetta Pizza. I start with a batch of my home made Bruchetta, that consists of fresh Roma tomatoes, either sliced or diced (I sliced them for this one), fresh chopped garlic, fresh chopped basil, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. I let that marinate in the fridge while I prepare the rest of the pizza. For the crust, I like to use Isa’s pizza crust recipe from Veganomicon, and her sauce recipe too unless I’m pressed for time, and in that case I cheat and buy store bought pizza sauce… very shameful, I know. I also find it fun and fragrant to kneed some complimenting herbs into the pizza dough. I used a mixture of basil, oregano, rosemary, and garlic for this one. As for the cheese, my favorite vegan cheese is Follow Your Heart, Vegan Gourmet, Mozzarella flavor.

I always pre-bake my crust so that it’s nice and crispy, so I pop the crust into the oven for about 10 minutes on 450-475 degrees, remove, and then proceed to add the sauce, cheese, and bruschetta. I then place the pizza back into the oven at 450 degrees for about 5-10 minutes, until it starts to look and smell good, then I turn the broiler on just long enough to melt the cheese to my desired liking. I remove from the oven, let cool, and there you have it, Vegan Bruschetta Pizza is served! And it was freaking AMAZING!

Bruschetta Pizza!

Next up, Loukas' pizza! He was craving olives and peppers and wanted his pizza to be kind of Greek-ish, so I made it with a regular crust, sauce, cheese, mushrooms, onions, olives, banana peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and sprinkled it with some Greek style seasoning. He enjoyed it!